


Out of the Woods

by accents



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Jutsu, kakashi's kind of a dad, specifically outsider angst, there might be romance in the future idk yet, with tiny bb sasuke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accents/pseuds/accents
Summary: How do you prove your worth?A child abandoned at the outskirts of the Land of Fire is adopted into the Hidden Leaf Village. And though she has their hospitality from day one, gaining their trust is a different matter.----Anyway, I had an idea for a jutsu and made a story to explore it.





	1. Forest Child

It was about two weeks ago that a young girl was found unconscious in the forest. She couldn’t have been more than 9 years old, nor could she have been a local. The clothes she wore—a tight—woven shawl, a long tawny skirt--were suited to desert terrain. Her long dark hair was matted and tangled, as if she’d been sleeping outside for a fortnight, and bits of mud had caked on to her clothes. The sun-bronzed skin of her feet showed evidence that she had once worn sandals, though they must have been lost on her journey.

At that time, the faint light of dawn was just beginning to creep in. If the three Konoha jōnin returning from their mission in the Land of Rivers had taken a path just a dozen more kilometers to the east, they might not have sensed the faint presence of a strange chakra fading fast.

As they leapt across tree branches, the first to notice was the trio's reluctant leader, Hatake Kakashi. Instead of feeling interest or concern, he nearly sighed out loud with exasperation. He was ready to go home, and hoped this wouldn't turn into anything complicated. He signaled the group to stop.

"Do you two sense that?" he asked.

Yūhi Kurenai, a wild-haired kunoichi, followed Kakashi's gaze. "Yes. Someone hurt, maybe?"

"Maybe, but something about it seems odd. Hizashi-san?" Kakashi prompted his other companion.

"I'll take a closer look," he replied. _Byakugan!_

A member of the Hyūga clan, Hizashi's rare ability allowed him to see clearly despite the dim light, the trees, and the distance.

There! He could see it, the silhouette of a small girl collapsed by the bed a shallow creek. She was obviously very weak—Hizashi’s eyes could see that the pale-yellow shine of her chakra was gurgling rather than flowing. But more worrying than that, a bone-white energy swirled around a point between her shoulder blades. It unnerved Hizashi that when he tried to focus on that spot, his gaze unwillingly seemed to shift away.

He relayed this information to the team as they set off to investigate. When they found the child, Kurenai was at her side in a flash, listening for signs of breathing and feeling her pulse.

“I don’t see any signs of genjutsu. But be careful, it could be a trap,” Hizashi warned from the treetop, as Kakashi strolled to join Kurenai.

“We’re big kids, no need to worry,” Kakashi replied airily, waving his hand back up at the others.

Gently lifting her to lean against a tree, Kurenai removed the girl’s tattered beige shawl, then pulled down on the back of her shirt collar to reveal a tiny black seal on her upper back.

The mark was only a few centimeters in diameter. There were three wedge-shaped symbols, equally spaced in a circle, with each tip facing the center. Though you wouldn’t be able to see it from far away, when Kakashi leaned in, he also saw miniscule differences in the textures of each wedge—the top one was comprised of hexagons, the bottom right of circles, the bottom left of stripes.

“We should get her to our hospital as soon as possible,” Kurenai said as she scooped the girl up into her arms. “And her clothes… Could she be from—”

“This could be a trap,” Hizashi insisted in his lordly manner. “If she’s a weapon or a spy, then you’d be fools to invite the snake into our nest.”

“There are better ways to infiltrate our village than _this_ ,” Kurenai retorted. “Even if this is a weapon, the child is just the vessel, not the perpetrator.”

Kakashi had the patience to listen to their back-and-forth for almost a whole minute before stepping in to make a decision.

“That’s enough now. I’ll place a seal on this mark so it can’t be used. We’ll take the girl to the village, where we can give her some food, and get some other opinions. If she wakes up, we can ask her what she knows. Alright now?” Though most of Kakashi’s face was covered by his mask and headband, they could hear his saccharine smile.

In the early afternoon, the little girl woke up in the hospital. Kurenai tried her best to make the experience as comfortable as possible, but at Hizashi’s insistence, there were several examinations and even more questions. However, both failed to yield anything useful—the mysterious symbol, while its chakra was a different nature than the girl’s own chakra, didn’t come off as anything special. The patient herself seemed to have lost her memory, unable to give any information her interrogators wanted. Through all this, Kakashi leisured on the hospital roof, reading.

In the end, the most senior ninjas of the village couldn’t figure out the kind of significance the child’s mark held. Some thought it might have been a failed experiment, where the test subject was discarded or managed to escape; some conjectured that it might have just been a clan’s way of passing down their family emblem. What made it so difficult, and in the end so easy to dismiss, was that its power was so weak as to be negligible. With this in mind, and with Kakashi’s seal in place, the council agreed it was safe to raise her as one of the Hidden Leaf.  

Even after three days in her new home, she couldn’t remember anything about her past—about where she came from, how long she had traveled, or why she left. And since she couldn’t even remember her own name, the first few children to meet her gave her one that stuck.

Moriko. The forest child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *BIG SHRUG*


	2. Making Friends

If she could find one person to trust, that might be enough.

But for a new arrival in a tight-knit village, that was easier said than done. Moriko was contemplating this on a quiet street, wondering which villagers’ houses she was walking past. Every day, she walked through town, looking for new people to talk to, hoping she might strike up a bond with somebody. So far, she’d only been met with suspicious glances, obnoxious sneers, or flippant giggles.

But something soon would click. Something would work out. She hoped.

Of course, she could have started with her rescuers. Kurenai had elected to be her guardian, in a loose sense—but although Moriko slept in her house and ate at her table, she spent most of her time running about exploring the village. Kurenai was kind and fair; she had been there when Moriko had woken up gasping in the hospital, with tears in her eyes from some forgotten nightmare.

As for the second, she was just coming up on his clan’s household. Even if she hadn’t found a suitably sized tree for peering over the outer walls, it would have still been obvious from that authoritative voice running drills in the courtyard.

“Get up! Again!!” she heard Hizashi order.

Moriko gripped the first branch, just at eye level, and she was just hoisting herself onto it when—

“Back again?” someone behind her asked casually.

Moriko yelped and lost her grip, catching herself on the branch with her armpits. In her peripheral vision, she saw silver hair and a dark blue mask.

“How’d you know?” she grumbled, awkwardly swinging herself back onto the ground. She combed her out of her face. “Following me or something?”

There was also this man, the third, Kakashi. When you could find him, he was okay enough—he didn’t lie to her, he wasn’t intimidating, and he never tried to frighten her (except maybe just now). When you could find him, that is. And then of course, sometimes he found you.

“Not usually,” was his lofty reply. “I enjoy doing more interesting things. But some people seem to think you need a babysitter. You’re—”

Here it was again. Like an aggravating itch ever since she woke up in this village. Around adults, she always felt observed. And that made her feel so very uncomfortable. No, she wasn’t looking for just someone to trust. What she really wanted, of course, was a friend.

“Leave me alone! I don’t need you to _watch_ me!” she cried, and immediately sprinted away.  

When she stopped to catch her breath, she didn’t quite recognize her surroundings. This was a part of town she hadn’t visited before, and an eerily quiet one at that. She followed the wall of the compound until she came to a set of doors. She traced a red and white crest painted on the wood.

Hearing the voices of some adults coming around the corner, she ran towards a clutch of trees she hoped would keep her out of sight. As she crept further, the ground sloped downwards, and soon the trees cleared at the shore of a small lake.

It was a calming sight, the sparkle of blueness amongst the seemingly endless greenery. Her first thought was to walk along its shoreline to look for a few stones to take home. But then she noticed the dock, leading out onto the water.

And on that dock stood a boy her age, with short black hair that jutted out in the back. His clothes were just as dark, from his high-collared shirt to his sandals. His eyes were closed in concentration, and he was making a series of odd hand shapes.

She was too curious to care about hiding anymore.

“What is that you’re doing? With your hands?”

“AH!!” The dark-haired boy spun around so quickly, he tripped and fell on the dock. He was up in an instant, a shuriken in hand, his dignity a little scuffed.

She decided it was probably a good idea to talk from behind the tree. She poked her head out and tried again. “H-hello. I’m… I’m--”

“You’re Moriko,” the boy said for her. He relaxed and put his weapon away. “The forest kid.” There was an expectant stare from the girl. After a moment, he realized what she was waiting for and coughed. “I’m Uchiha Sasuke. What do you want?”


	3. Rumors of a Town

Sasuke had heard of her, of course. Among children and adults, rumors about the mysterious girl circulated as fast as the wind could carry them. But now he could judge her for himself.

Like him, Moriko had dark hair, hers reaching just past her shoulders. She had simple walking sandals, a green sleeveless shirt, and white shorts. Her skin was tan, darker than his own pale complexion, and they seemed to be about the same height.

She was twitchy, too, as if every new sound and movement needed her attention. And from what he’d heard, a lot was new to her. She had spent her first week close to Kurenai’s home, relearning the names and functions of the most basic things—clothes, furniture, foods. Apparently, she had gotten up to speed fairly quickly, then every day proceeded to interrogate any other kids she met, earning a reputation as an all too nosey newcomer.

But while other kids complained about her nosiness, adults admonished her impudence. With the exceptions of Kurenai, Kakashi, and Hizashi, the girl practically balked at any interaction with adults.

Sasuke may have been young, but he took his role as a shinobi-to-be very seriously. First impressions are incredibly important for a ninja, and seeing below the surface even more so. When his black eyes met her grey ones, he saw a tiredness behind them, like the ghost of something terrible he saw in his own face lately.

She had to be something more than just a fish out of water.

Maybe the whispers he’d heard outside the academy today had been true.

The forest girl visited him the next day, and the next, and the next. Well, she continued to visit that lake every day. She would walk around its perimeter, inspecting stones, and usually choosing one or two to take home. He continued to go there every day as well, ostensibly to train (but mostly to brood). Either of them could have stopped, but both were just a bit too curious.

On the third day, she sat on the dock with him as they traded questions. Most of his questions hit a wall, but it was interesting how she claimed to remember nothing. Then there was one question she asked that stung—no, burned.

“Do you live in that big house all by yourself? Where’s your family?”

Sasuke flinched. It had been months since that day, but the sight of his brother’s stoic expression, his parents’ limp bodies, it was rushing back to him, the blood—

 

It was at once incredibly beautiful and undeniably terrifying. Moriko watched in awe as a massive swirl of flames bloomed over the lake. It was as if he was just screaming, and his cries were so rife with fury and pain that the sound transformed into fire. Standing behind him, even as she could feel the heat pressing on her skin, a shiver ran down her spine.

The roar of the fire died down, and Sasuke slowly sat on the dock again, hunched over, pressing his hands against his face. Moriko was deciding whether to just get up and leave him alone, when he turned to peer at her. The pressure of his stare kept her frozen in place.

“Do you know where your family is?” he asked.

She shook her head. His gaze remained locked on her. But whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t saying it, and his feelings were locked behind an unchanging expression.

“So…” Moriko started. “Can everyone here spit fire?”

For a painfully long moment, it seemed like he just wanted to continue the silent staring contest. Finally, he scoffed and turned away.

“That jutsu comes from my…clan,” he replied. “It’s not the kind of thing you just learn at the academy.”

“Kurenai and Kakashi can do jutsu! What’s an academy?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “An academy is a school. And plenty of people know how to use jutsu.”

“There’s a school? Where?!”

Sasuke frowned at her, a bit dumbfounded. “How do you not know about the academy? Where do you think everyone goes during the—”

“Can you take me there? Now?” she cut him off, unable to contain her excitement. If there was a school where all the other kids went, she could spend time with them, make friends with them. If there was a school, she could learn new things every day, about this strange place and these people who might accept her if she could learn to be more like them.

“Fine,” the boy sighed. “There’s something there I ought to show you anyway.”

 

It was stupid to be wasting time on this, Sasuke thought. But it was a chance to gather more clues from the chūnin who did nothing but gabble in the evening hours.

The Academy was not one, but several buildings clustered near the base of Hokage mountain, where the stony faces of the village’s past leaders watched over them. That large cliff cast an early evening shadow over the red-painted wood of the highest academy roof.

This place was the unifying center of their village. Even the Hokage conducted his affairs here. All the children attended, even those who weren’t training to be shinobi came to learn their arithmetic and reading. Students eventually became fully-fledged ninja, protecting the village and teaching the next generation.

“Because we live in a world of war and violence, the Academy was created out of military need,” his brother Itachi had explained to him. On that afternoon, Sasuke had been complaining again that Itachi never played with him anymore. “I need to be ready to protect our family.”

“I am your family, nii-san,” Sasuke pouted.

After Itachi left, his mother had pulled him into her lap and said,

“This village is our family too, Sasuke. The Academy is like the nurturing heart of our people, where you’ll learn to get stronger, and be brave and loving. Your brother is incredibly gifted. That’s why he needs work hard now, because he’ll do great things one day."

 

Moriko was caught in that moment of trance when one tries to remember something deeply buried in their brain. These moments happened a couple times a day for her. This time, she was staring at the lettering above the door, wondering if she knew how to read. She couldn’t pinpoint the kanji, but ... A…ca…de…my. The letters bubbled through the fog of her brain.

Then she noticed Sasuke had stopped in his tracks outside the school’s front entrance. He was shaking his head vigorously, like he was trying shake thoughts out of his brain. She hesitated, before approaching him and putting a hand on his shoulder. He jerked out of his daze, swatting her hand away with his own.

“I brought you here to show you something,” he said curtly, as if he wasn’t the one who was just spacing out. He shoved his hands in his pockets for good measure.

“What is it?”

“The only thing they’ve been talking about for days.”

Her interest was hooked. She followed the boy into the building, where they crept by empty classrooms until distant voices down the hall became clearer.

“I caught word of another village being attacked.”

Moriko trotted forward to the next room’s half-open door, peeking in through the window pane. The speaker was an older girl, a teenager, sitting on the teacher’s desk. Her companions were two boys of a similar age, one on the floor resting his back on the desk, the other wandering around the students’ seats. They all wore the headbands bearing the Konoha emblem, as well as matching jackets, which seemed to carry a lot of responsibility.

“This way,” Sasuke whispered, grabbing Moriko by the wrist and pulling her into an adjacent classroom. She followed, even holding her breath as the conversation continued.

“It’s consistent with the last two, so they’re pretty sure it’s the same culprit,” the first speaker continued.

“We’re not taking in any more strays, are we? Doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do,” another chimed in.

“There weren’t any survivors. And could you show a little more compassion? That girl’s entire family was killed, her town scorched to the ground. It’s sad.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange she somehow got out alive? Itachi wouldn’t have left a loose end.”

“No one’s saying it’s Itachi.”

“No one wants to admit it’s him because then they might as well give up hope.”

“He can’t stay off the hook forever.”

“He’s a genius. He just might."

As much as her mind seemed to constantly whir, Moriko took a long time to come to realizations because it felt like her brain pieced things together in all the wrong order. So she asked in a whisper to Sasuke,

“Who are they talking about?”

“You, idiot.”

“And Itachi?”

“My brother.”


End file.
